but the company I used to work for were looking to introduce this a few years back, they would have supplied everything for free in exchange for advertising space on the bikes and stations. So I'm surprised that they have set one up where you have to pay.

just a bit uncomfortable with it s'all. Indicative of the fact that our government or indeed society more generally doesn't take investment in the environment and/or public transport seriously enough. But then again defecit reduction etc etc yeah yeah

it's possible that they pulled out but a tender was put forward. Even though I was obviously the most powerful man in the company I wasn't privy to the final details. They are a huge advertising company and could easily have financed it.

I don't know what the running costs (as opposed to the start-up costs) of the bike scheme are, so I've got no idea whether that would have been viable. The fact that Balonz's company didn't do it suggests that it wasn't.

but I don't think it's technically FREE per half hour - don't you have to pay some sort of deposit thing online first to 'subscribe' to the system, and then they charges are on top of that? i.e you pay a small amount up front and then after that you can use it for half an hour for free, pay a couple of quid if you're on there for an hour etc?

You can also leapfrog across the city by docking a bike every 25 minutes and picking up a new one, although I think there's a 5 minute stand down time between each change designed to discourage that type of chicanery